A 21-year-old suspect was killed in a police operation after driving a van into a crowd at the Christopher Street Day in Berlin on Saturday evening.
The suspected perpetrator Abdul B. or Abdul Ballout, a German born in Germany with Lebanese roots, is said to have driven a white van on Saturday evening around 22:00 at the Ahornsteig parallel to Lennéstraße into a crowd near Potsdamer Platz. One woman was killed and 29 others injured. He is then said to have attacked passers-by with a suspected machete. The act is assessed as an Islamist-motivated terrorist attack.
Abdul B. was known to the authorities. He had tried to join the Islamic State, was arrested in November 2025 at BER Airport after imprisonment in Lebanon and sentenced on 12 May to 22 months youth imprisonment. The sentence had been suspended on probation, although the public prosecutor's office had appealed. Early in July there were searches on suspicion of weapons offences.
Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on ARD that it was not understandable how a probationary sentence could be imposed on someone classified as a threat. Berlin's Governing Mayor Kai Wegner expressed astonishment at the decision of the youth court. Terrorism expert Peter Neumann called for a review of criminal law.
